In The Stars
by Panthers Midnight Lair
Summary: Tag for Threads. Jack's thoughts about the fact that Daniel is once again missing and presumed dead.


In The Stars

Season: 8

Pairing: Jack/Daniel

Rating: R

Category: Tag for Threads, Drama, Thoughts

Spoilers: Threads, Fallen

Warnings: non-graphic slash

_Disclaimer: The Stargate universe and its inhabitants are the sole property of MGM et al. I don't own them. I just like to play with them_.

Tag for Threads. Jack's thoughts about the fact that Daniel is once again missing and presumed dead.

**XxXxXxXx**

Jack sat slouching in the chair perched on the roof of his house in what he liked to call the crow's nest. Slowly nursing a beer he gazed out across the darkened sky at the panorama of stars; his telescope hidden under the converted motorcycle cover he used to keep it out of the weather. That night he saw no reason to bother uncovering it. He wasn't interested in looking at anything up close, not even the neighbors.

Daniel was gone…again. So far he'd been missing nearly two weeks and Jack could tell by the expressions on half the faces at the SGC that the general consensus was he was dead…again. He couldn't help smiling to himself as he took another swallow of beer. How many times had they been through this and people still hadn't learned that the "you can never really kill Daniel Jackson" rule was written in stone. Once upon a time Jack had thought there were certain exclusions, but Vis Uban had proven him wrong. Even when he was most obviously dead it was only temporary. Jack couldn't explain it, but he knew it as sure as he knew that within about a half hour he was going to need another beer.

By his count Daniel had been presumed a corpse on three separate occasions, with a couple of very near misses scattered in there, before Kelowna. All three times…well four…Jack had written at least the start of a eulogy, trying to put feelings he hardly knew how to express down on paper. It was a practice he loathed for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was because it meant he was once again staring at the reality of life without Daniel. But thankfully those days were over. Jack was ashamed to admit he had given up on Daniel every single time. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

Obviously something had gone wrong. It probably wasn't too much of a stretch to say horribly wrong because they hadn't heard anything from him in far too long. Jack had listed him MIA because the regulations said he had to, but that was as far as he was willing to go. He was missing, but he was not dead. All they had to do was be patient and he would turn up…eventually…most likely in the last place they expected to find him.

Jack didn't know the rules about descending from the domain of the glowing aliens. So he couldn't say whether Oma had punted Daniel back down to human form the first time on a totally random planet, that was definitely not his own, because she had wanted to or because those were the rules. Maybe when they showed you the door they didn't pay much attention to where you landed. If that was the case he couldn't begin to guess where in the universe Daniel might land this time and whether it would mean they had to walk him through the amnesia bit all over again. Not that he minded. He'd go through it as many times as he had to just as long as it meant they didn't end up actually burying a body.

Taking another swallow of beer he kept his eyes trained on the stars. Daniel was out there somewhere. The only question was where and how long before he decided to come home. He would never admit such a thing out loud, but Jack missed him. It was too quiet in the house without him. It was also threatening to unearth the memory of the heartache he'd gone through the last time they had all honestly thought Daniel was dead. Himself included. It was a memory that had been dogging him for most of the last two weeks. Jack had had him back barely more than a year and here he was right back to missing him. But this time it was different. Draining the last of the beer from his bottle he reminded himself of that fact one more time. There was no need to mourn him because Daniel was still alive somewhere, in some form or another. He didn't need to prove it. He just needed to believe it. Daniel would prove it for him eventually.

Stubborn determination aside, Jack didn't know whether he could stand being in love with a guy that popped in and out of human form without warning; that could leave on a mission and disappear for weeks maybe months before showing up naked and confused in some random corner of the universe. If they hadn't been talking about Daniel he probably would have said that it wasn't worth the trouble, the worry, or the heartache. Of course, if it had been any man other than Daniel it wouldn't have been an issue in the first place. First, because Jack wouldn't be in love with him and second, because the poor slob would be dead…done in…extinct…pushing up daisies…taking a dirt nap…a permanent guest of Oma, like it or not.

Yawning, Jack got to his feet. Maybe he would forego the next beer and just go to bed.

He cast one more glance toward the stars before heading for the ladder. "Night, Danny." He said quietly. "Come home soon, will ya? The fish miss you."


End file.
